


carry him to his burying ground

by batyatoon



Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Alternate Scene, Dragon Age Quest: The Landsmeet, For Some Value Thereof, Gen, Inspirational Speeches, POV Second Person, all characters except Loghain and the Warden are cameo-only jsyk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-13
Updated: 2017-07-13
Packaged: 2018-12-01 09:42:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11483748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/batyatoon/pseuds/batyatoon
Summary: Let not the land once proud of him insult him now.About to face Loghain Mac Tir at the Landsmeet, the Warden decides that maybe a direct frontal assault isn't the best tactic here.





	carry him to his burying ground

You’re only going to get one shot at this.

Ser Cauthrien’s voice is still in your ears, low and anguished: _Loghain is a great man, but his hatred of Orlais has driven him to madness. He has done terrible things, I know it, but I owe him everything_.  And Anora, earlier, speaking quite calmly about how her father was a hero and a legend, and no one would believe word of his misdeeds without proof; sooner they would believe you and her and Arl Eamon to be liars.

And Eamon himself, before that: _I would have imagined pigs would fly before Loghain Mac Tir would turn against our king._

And the fleeting thought that came from somewhere: if Loghain had fallen at Ostagar, they’d always remember him as a hero.  And no one wants to give up the memory of a hero.  Better had they died honorably before becoming someone you can’t respect anymore.

Better had they died.

"Tell us, Warden,” shouts Loghain as you approach the center of the room, “how will the Orlesians take our nation from us?  Will they deign to send their troops, or simply issue their commands through this would-be prince?”

It's ugly, what you're about to do to him, an ugly expediency that makes the sordid scramble for Orzammar’s throne feel positively innocent. All the uglier for being wrapped in the words of noble sentiment. But it's the only chance you have against his long record of heroic service, and the only mercy you can offer his daughter.  Or his loyal knight, who wanted so badly to serve someone worthy of her loyalty.

( _I owe him everything_ , she said, and it's hard -- Maker, it's so hard not to think of the way Alistair talks about Duncan. The way you yourself still feel about Duncan, still, _still_ , despite everything.)

“What did they offer you?” Loghain presses, outrage seething just under his words -- so misplaced, that outrage, so misdirected, that you have to fight the urge to just yell _I’m not working for Orlais, you imbecile_.  “How much is the price of Fereldan honor now?"

His guards close in as you come within a few paces of him.  You slow and stop, letting him finish, waiting for silence before you speak.

It’s not going to be anything they expect.

“I did not come here to offer a challenge to Teyrn Loghain,” you call out, turning so that your words reach all the assembled nobles. “Or to question his loyalty.  How could I dare?  How could anyone?  Such a great man, such a hero, with so long and honorable a history of service to Ferelden?”  No sarcasm in your voice, not the faintest trace, difficult as it is.  You have to sound like you mean this part.

Alistair is staring at you as though you've lost your mind.  Up on the balcony, Arl Eamon’s brows draw down sharply -- this doesn’t sound like any of the possible tactics you’ve discussed with him.  Loghain’s eyes are narrowed at you, in unfriendly calculation; he's no fool, whatever else he is, not in matters like this.  He draws breath to respond, and it's like watching an enemy mage start the gestures of a deadly spell: you know you have to strike first, and fast.

“I say again, I have not come to challenge Teyrn Loghain!” The words ring under the rafters of the great hall, sharp enough to make a small silence around themselves, and you take another step into that gap and finish: “I have come to _mourn_ him.”

Another precious moment of silence from the assembly, not so much shock as confusion -- _wait, what did she say?_ \-- and when the murmurs start, they’re low and uncertain.  But your eyes are only on Loghain as you continue speaking, and you see the moment when his eyes widen in disbelief as he starts to grasp what you’re doing.  Several beats ahead of everybody else, but for once it won’t do him any good.

“I had the honor of meeting Loghain Mac Tir, once, at Ostagar before the battle. At the time I knew only what any schoolchild knows of him: the hero who drove off the Orlesians, the great general and brilliant strategist. But in the weeks since I came to Denerim I’ve learned more of him: a father who loved his daughter, a lord who loved his land and served his king.  I have grieved all the more for his death, with all I’ve learned.  And all Ferelden should grieve with me, for never since the defeat of Orlais has our country so desperately needed him.”

The entire assembly is staring at you, some still in astonishment, some in growing understanding.

“If Teyrn Loghain had not fallen at Ostagar, we could have been victorious!  If not, we might have at least saved the life of King Cailan.  Or at the _very_ least we might have recovered his body from the battlefield afterward, instead of leaving him to be sport for the darkspawn.”  A touch of grim grief, there; you don’t have to dissemble for it, only to remember the miserable sight of Cailan’s stripped corpse hanging above the bridge, centerpiece of a barbaric shrine to victory.

This time the rumble is louder, bewilderment giving way to shock and outrage, but nobody speaks quite loud enough to interrupt you.  Any number of heads turn toward Loghain, expecting him to respond; but Loghain has frozen in place at those last words, white and silent as though dead indeed.

“And here, in the heart of the realm -- do you think Teyrn Loghain would have been idle over the past months?  Stood by and permitted an ambitious regent to stir up a civil war in the face of the Blight, or to hire a blood mage to poison the Arl of Redcliffe, or to sell Fereldan citizens out of the alienage to Tevinter slavers?”  You can see Loghain’s shock turning into cold fury, and as he opens his mouth you cut him off with the last backhand blow: “Or allowed the Arl of Denerim to hold his daughter the queen prisoner, in fear of her own life, for raising her voice against him?  Never in his life. You who knew the teyrn, can you say otherwise?”

Scattered exclamations of dismay, horrified indignation, denial; stirrings of anger. But the assembly is still listening, and Loghain is still struggling to form words into a weapon he can wield against yours.

“I survived the rout at Ostagar through no merit of my own; I was saved, when the rest of the Grey Wardens were betrayed and left to die.  If Teyrn Loghain had lived that day, he would be here now, working to end this power struggle so that a united Ferelden could face the Blight.  In his memory, and that of the king he served loyally until the end, I can do no less.”

You meet Loghain’s eyes squarely, and it’s no effort at all to show a face of grim sorrow, appropriate to the eulogy you’re giving.  You can say this, and you can mean it, and it won't stop you.

(Because how many times now, how many times since all this began, have you faced someone whose good intentions have been corrupted -- by fear, by pain, by trusting too much or too little; by embracing a power they hoped would make them strong, make them safe -- until the good in them was gone?  It's not Jowan standing there on the other side of the bars, or Connor with the demon looking out of his eyes, someone you could still save.  It's not even Zathrian, who could still redeem himself with the right death, or Ruck, who could safely be left alone in his madness, harming no one.  No, it's Uldred or Branka, someone too far gone to know it, lost before you ever met them, leaving something that walks in their shape and speaks with their voice, something that has to die before it can do more evil.)

“I only regret,” you say to him directly, “that I could not be doing so at his side.”

The cold shatters; Loghain’s face contorts in a molten rage.  “ _ENOUGH!_ ” he snarls, his voice cracked and straining upward --

\-- and instead of falling silent for his response, the room erupts into chaos, every voice rising at once.

It’s a respite, as he turns away from you to try to shout them down.  It gives you a moment to glance around at your party, make sure they’re ready if this turns violent.

Morrigan’s face is inscrutable, but something about it suggests irony.  Alistair’s working hard for a similar degree of impassivity, which you suspect is covering an unabated bewilderment.  Oghren’s bewilderment is plain on his face: he can see there's a fight happening here, brutal as any on the Proving grounds, but he can't see any blood.

Wynne looks more grim than anything else -- you know you’ll need to talk to her about this later -- but she doesn’t say anything aloud.  Zevran grins when he catches your glance, and tilts his head in a gesture like a salute; somehow you’re not surprised that he appreciates an attack this underhanded. Sten exudes a mild disapproval, bizarrely like a mother about to tell a child not to play with their food.

But it’s Leliana who meets your gaze and nods, very nearly as grim as Wynne but fiercely approving.  Leliana who was a bard before you met, who understands both weapons and stories, who understands how a story can _be_ a weapon.

 _Stories will not save us_ , Loghain said back at Arl Eamon’s estate. You could almost wish there were a way to fling that back in his face now.

Loghain’s shouting himself hoarse, to no effect; it’s Eamon who takes back control of the audience, almost effortlessly, and hands it back to you with a few words.  The rest all feels like an afterthought, assenting to the duel, refusing a champion to fight in your stead, stepping into the cleared space in the center of the hall.  It’s already done.  It’s finished.  Everybody knows it.

He won’t be the first dead man you’ve had to kill, but you can hope he’ll be the last.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from the song "[General Taylor](https://youtu.be/WYo6KqaSd3o)" as sung by Great Big Sea, by way of an apocryphal story about how it was written as a satiric eulogy for a man who was still alive. I have never been able to find the story anywhere else, and it seems contradicted by other sources on the song's origin, but it informed this fic's premise considerably regardless.
> 
> (A very short **bonus deleted scene** has been added in the Comments.)


End file.
